data securityEven though technology makes it harder for criminals to do their work, it’s not bullet-proof. In fact, there are many criminals equally as innovative as their private industry counterparts. So they’re fast at developing new methods for attacking your business.Take a look at some ways they might do that in 2015:

1) State-Sponsored Hacking will Continue to Increase:

It’s cheap, easier to cover your tracks, and simple to deny any wrongdoing publicly. North Korea, Syria, and Iran will target the United States with greater frequency. Who wouldn’t love a chance to attack an enemy and make a clean getaway?

2) Healthcare Businesses Remain Top Targets:

In the criminal world, personal data is equivalent to gold. And in healthcare, there’s a treasure trove of personal data available. Medical records are also versatile for criminals. They can use that information to commit many different kinds of fraudulent acts. In fact, healthcare data is so useful, it’s valued more than stolen credit card data.

3) Hacking Techniques Become Less Obvious to Notice:

Remember those spam phishing e-mails from 5-7 years ago? They had obvious misspellings. They looked like a third grader wrote them.They were easy to detect. Now, those e-mails will become more sophisticated. That means busy professionals at your company will have a harder time identifying phishing e-mails.So you’re much more likely to experience a devastating attack.

4) Migration to the Cloud Leads to More Cloud IT Security Issues:

You can’t control the data security with cloud computing. But, you can control which cloud services you use. Make sure the one you choose encrypts your data during storage – and transmission. That’s really the key security among cloud services providers. And if you have a contractor take care of your cloud services, ask them how they verify the quality of the security of those services.

5) Long-Standing Vulnerabilities Will Be Discovered:

Heartbleed was actually around for more than 2 years before it came to the public’s attention. That’s an amazingly long time for criminals to do serious damage! At least part of the problem was that Open SSL was built using open-source programming (available to the general public). So of course, some people will take that coding and do the wrong thing.There’s many other common programs built with open-source coding. Here’s a list of 1,211 other popular open-source programs that could be exploited!

You Need to Watch Your Security Closely!

The bottom line is you need to tightly monitor your security. That includes whether it’s in-house or somewhere in the cloud. And if you can’t do it with your in-house staff, hire an outsourced IT support vendor you trust.

Learn more about our Data Security Product Suite